When we last left our valiant party, it had split up. Donald was stuck training with Wicker on the mainland, and the rest of the party was in rainy Restenford. Donald learned the spells Minor Globe, Charm Monster, and Polymorph Self over the winter.

Meanwhile, in November 2181, the party was asked by the Baron to take on a mission. A group of bandits were harassing Garroten, and had slain a patrol, and needed to be taken out. They called themselves “The Fabulous” and were led by a woman in banded mail.

We disguised ourselves as a caravan traveling from Restenford to Garroten. Signs such as “Sale on Fist-Sized Diamonds” or “Year End Blowout on Platinum” were considered, but dismissed. Cassian rode as the caravan drover, with Albee, Morgan, and Bogomel on top, while Balinor, Felix, Nakumanu, and Chiaro rode inside.

While this would normally be easy, our options were rather limited since we were lacking the party wizard, the party’s main source of area of effect spells. We were essentially limited to Entangle and Hold Person.

Nothing happened, and we arrived in Garroten, where we discovered that a group had been attacked only half a day ahead of us the day before. We set back out, and then turned around at the halfway point.

This turned out to be quite sufficient. The woman appeared in front of the caravan and demanded 20 for safe passage. Cassian asked who she was, and she said, “The Fabulous?” Cassian echoed incredulously, “The Fabulous?” The woman responded, “Are you being cheeky with me, drover?”

Cassian responded, “Die.”

And so she did. The woman collapsed to the ground. The tarp flew off the caravan and Balinor and Felix dashed out to grab the five men spotted on the right side of the road. Kain dropped an Entangle and caught all but one, which Albee indicated vigorously.

Bogomel began tying up the woman, when Cassian noticed five hobgoblins on the other side of the road carrying halberds and just watching. Cassian Held 3 of them, which they began to drag away. Then Cassian Held the other two, and the battle was rapidly over, as the final man surrendered to Felix and Balinor.

With the help of a Detect Lie spell, we interrogated the woman. They turned out to be a bunch of 1st and 2nd level bandits, a moderately powerful group actually. But the hobgoblins turned out to be acting, rather than actually being warriors. We had caught all of them.

As a reward, we kept the longbow +1/+1 of quality, and the longbow +1 to hit of quality. The money was returned to the people it had been stolen from, and the remainder of the gear was paid in salvage tax.

We returned to Restenford.

Winter began, and on December 18, 2181, something weird happened. After breakfast, Gaston and Brillman, two of the Baron’s guards, came to see us. A group of families on the northern outskirts of town had been found slaughtered in their houses. They had been killed by sword strikes of some sort, and the places had been searched. There was nothing of value anywhere, but pepper had been spilled to confuse the dogs. They were able to figure out that there was a wolf and a tall humanoid, probably furry, around. Speak with Dead revealed that the humanoid had a glowing blue sword and huge bug eyes. In addition, the “wolf” had Commanded one person to sleep. It appeared that we were fighting a bugbear and a worg. We searched along the river bank and found a cleaved raccoon, but little else.

We decided to guard the most isolated house and wait for an attack. The other two nearby houses were evacuated.

Sure enough, a dagger slipped through the door and lifted the latch. The door swung open, revealing… a bugbear and a worg. The bugbear was dropped by a command spell from Kain, and the worg was running. Balinor stepped into the door to attack, and it Commanded Balinor to “Freeze!” Balinor shivered uncontrollably and ducked out of the way to allow Albee to get through. Albee, Felix, and the wolf gave chase. “Toad Master” Chiaro created illusionary woodsmen who appeared in front of the worg. The worg banked sharply for the barns, but Albee had a chance to attack. He cracked the worg on its skull, and shattered its back, killing it instantly. I love monks.

The illusionary woodsmen bowed to Albee, and then sank into the grass.

The farmers were assured that we had defeated the monsters. We discovered that the bugbear was completely delusional. He assumed that he was the ruler of the world and was killing disloyal subjects. The bugbear collected the pinkies of the people he had killed (he had a dozen or so pinkies of humans and bugbears on his necklace). The worg proved singularly obnoxious and less helpful than one would think possible when questioned via Speak with Dead. We figured out that the bugbear’s lair was in bugbear territory. He had spent the last night in a cave near the riverbank, but nothing was found there.

This was odd, but it was resolved, so we dismissed the incident.

For New Years 2182, we made some donations, about 1500 gp to each church.

In February, Alduin finally unlocked the puzzle box! Inside was a very strange assortment of items—silver full plate, a silver table setting, a crossbow and quarrels, and a book—all about an inch tall.

This was explained to us by Peltar. The stuff was from Smallsville, where the Sphere of Diminution had shrunk everyone to the size of a paper clip. They had created items for themselves so that they could survive.

So we had found some odd curiosities.

On March 2, 2182, the most bizarre event of all occurred. The party was sitting at the docks near Falco’s Tavern in Restenford, when the general invasion alarm sounded. Morgan, Kain, Cassian, Nakumanu, and Bogomel ran to the house to get our gear. Balinor, Felix, Chiaro, and Albee went to see what they could do to help.

Atop the wall of the castle, Gelpus yelled that a dozen ogres were frontally attacking the town! We could see them advancing menacingly, but couldn’t help but wonder what they thought they were doing. Twelve ogres would be slaughtered by the town of Restenford.

Felix asked what they wanted. The lead ogre said that he was the emperor of the world, and that he demanded the town’s surrender. Felix began retreating his men to regroup with the townsfolk and give people time to arrive. Balinor, who had gone into the scout tower to get a pair of spears, was hit by a thrown boulder on his way out, but he sprinted to rejoin the group.

The ogres charged at the group, full speed. Peltar threw a Suggestion spell, hoping to convince the lead ogre to retreat from the attack. Nothing happened, and the melee began. Narahn, Brillman, and the other archers were firing from the wall. Gaston, Balinor, Felix, the Baron, Gelpus, and a number of others (including Marcus, the half-aquatic elf) were fighting the ogres in melee. One of the guards nearly went down, and the ogre shaman (who was not the “emperor”) began a Hold Person (recognized by Chiaro). This might have been annoying but he was finally disrupted by Gap, the dart thrower from Falco’s. Felix sliced him up in close combat. Balinor accidentally threw his first spear and hit one of his allies, missed, and fumbled again. He got clocked repeatedly.

Everyone got their chops in. The leader was quite durable and had taken over 50 points of damage when he was abruptly Polymorphed into a sea bass.

Amazingly, the remaining 2 ogres held their ground and easily slaughtered. No one was seriously hurt, and one ogre was questioned. Apparently the ogre had possessed unnatural combat abilities. The ogre had claimed that the powers were god-granted, and they believed him.

Very odd, two people having the same delusion. The party could only wonder if something was going on.

Two is a coincidence. If it happens a third time…

Experience ranged from 1000-1500 for this and the Bone Hill debacle. Nakumanu and Bogomel got 250.

Chiaro will train to 4th level next game. Also close is Albee, followed by Morgan and Felix, and then Balinor.

Next game, we reunite with Donald and find new missions. Perhaps we can return to Koralgesh and look for more naval missions….

A few logistics from last time: Quentin’s cloak+2 was given to Donald, his Ring of Toad Control was put on Chiaro, and his Belt of Many Pouches went to Kain.

The party had just decided to accept an 8 year old mission from the Nevronian Church in Benct to deal with demon-worshippers in Trun, a small village to the north of Benct (on Lendore).

A Divination performed in 2170 had revealed weak to moderate monsters, significant treasure, and great chances of drawing the wrath of the forces of chaotic evil. Demon-worship clergy is significant here.

Now we had no way of knowing if the situation had gotten worse, but hey, why not give it a try anyway? We thanked Father Filner at the Church and set off for Trun in early October 2181.

We traveled through the wilderness, and for some reason there were NO random encounters (thank you, thank you very much). We dodged Trun and traveled through farmland, passing by a hill called the Sentry, from which no one has returned. We made a mental note to go there later.

Next we traveled north of Trun and reached the hill where disaster had struck the Seapoint Lightning back in 2173. A quick review: the Seapoint Lightning formed after the Hafney Hill disaster. They intended to return to Hafney Hill, but misdirected and ended up at this demon-worshipping hill instead. They were attacked by a witch and weird demon things with swordlike arms. Lightning bolts rained down and annihilated much of the party, but they defeated the small force and escaped with some members alive.

It was day, and there were no storms on the horizon, so we had our stealthy Morgan and Albee check it out. There was a circle of stones but little else. We discovered from an overly hyperactive blue jay that there were lots of bad “possum” on the hill. Half-expecting demon possum, Albee woke one up in its tree and chatted with it, discovering that humans come when the moon is big.

The full moon was in ten days, so we decided to wait it out, camped in the bowl of the valley between Trun and the hill (though not directly in the path).

Balinor and Nakumanu were on watch when disaster struck. They both resisted some sort of spell effect and heard a weird noise. Nakumanu woke up Felix and Balinor began waking up Cassian.

Then a Fireball hit the party, blowing everyone up. Chiaro became “charro,” killed instantly by the flames. Nakumanu went down in severe trouble. Bogomel was left standing but unable to move due to flame wounds. Less trashed were Donald, Balinor, Felix, Morgan and Cassian. Kain was unaffected due to his protection, and Albee dropped from the nearby tree, unharmed.

Well, it woke everyone up.

Kain’s wolf Smoky smelled nothing, so we moved upwind (toward Trun, as it turned out). Morgan, Balinor, and several others moved to find our assailant. Suddenly, a huge humanoid appeared in front of us and demanded our surrender. It looked exactly like the “gaunt” from the ogre mage adventure (a gaunt is a near godlike being of evil).

When Balinor mumbled something, it said that it must finish us off and disappeared.

We retreated back to camp to protect the fallen, and spread out. That proved poor when the creature appeared behind Morgan and ran him through, killing him instantly. The creature then disappeared.

Balinor complained loudly and the creature appeared in front of Balinor. It demanded our surrender. Balinor began unhooking his hammers and crossbow and slowly placed them on the ground while Cassian healed Bogomel and Nakumanu.

The creature became impatient and told Balinor to undo his belt. At that moment, Albee yelled, “Tumble Balinor!” and through the wire ball at the creature.

Unfortunately, the ball went wild and dropped somewhere nearby. Balinor immediately attacked and hit with his magical hammer, inflicting what he thought was some small amount of damage to the creature.

Felix raced toward the creature and swung at it from behind, pasting it. Cassian had almost finished healing Nakumanu and Bogomel. Kain tried the Bracelet of Polymorph on the gaunt, but was unsuccessful.

The gaunt activated a hideous innate ability, rusting Balinor’s armor instantly and locking him in place. The “gaunt” was starting to sound really close to the demon Caxathoros that we barely killed in the Castle of Diamond.

Felix swung and missed, and suddenly a Flamestrike descended from the sky striking Balinor, Felix, and the creature. The thing was unaffected, Felix was scratched, but Balinor was completely trashed, sustaining a 6x flame wound (he was completely unable to move).

The creature turned to face the relatively uninjured Felix and swung his longsword, holding the fighter at bay. Donald dropped a Slow spell on him, amazingly successfully. The creature attempted to Dispel the effect, but failed. Things looked bad as no one could effectively fight the creature, when Albee saved the day.

The monk activated his token of heavy crossbow, and a Tugutan crossbow appeared that fired 6 +2 bolts instantly doing massive damage to the creature. The demon said that it would finish us later and turned into mist. Felix used Peacemaker’s abilities to track it and swung right through the mist with the +5 short sword. Kain tried to Dispel the mist, but was unable to locate it and the thing got away.

Then a Hold spell hit Felix, freezing him in place. Albee tore off after the “cleric” with the wolf Smoky. They quickly disappeared from sight.

Kain freed Felix with a Remove Paralysis while Cassian, Donald, and Bogomel went to help Albee. The monk had run through the forest and spotted an old crone moving with unnatural speed.

The crone turned and activated something and threw a Fireball at Albee and the wolf. Albee dodged it, and the wolf survived the explosion. Albee ran at her and tried to hit her, but found her to be incredibly difficult to hit despite a lack of armor. Smoky had better luck and attacked her successfully.

At that moment, a group of possum jumped at Smoky and took him down. Albee continued to avoid Command spells, three of them, from the crone. Finally, the fourth Command “Retreat!” worked, and Albee went zooming back toward the party. He passed the advancing trio and told them to “kill her!” They found the wolf lying bleeding on the ground, but no sign of the crone. Cassian dropped a Cure Serious to bring the wolf up to fighting health, and the trio retreated back to the party. At that moment the unknowing Kain set off to help them, leaving only Felix guarding the immobile Nakumanu, Balinor, and the two dead bodies.

Then twelve of the sword-arm demons showed up, advancing slowly on Felix. Felix was forced to guard Nakumanu, which proved unfortunate. The creatures swarmed over Felix, who messily killed one before going down under the heap. Nakumanu risked his life to draw out holy water to pour on the demons, but fell before he could complete the action.

Kain arrived as the creatures were killing Felix. He threw an Entangle and caught the creatures, but they were still killing Felix. Donald dropped a Web and caught all but one of the creatures, which was still try to finish off the barely conscious fighter.

Bogomel tried to free Nakumanu and Felix from the Web along with Cassian. Then a Hold spell caught Cassian, Kain, and Bogomel, freezing Bogomel in his tracks.

Donald Magic Missiled the creature, saving Felix.

Then additional disaster struck. Another Fireball hit the Web area, killing everything in it—the demons, Felix, and Nakumanu all perished.

Albee and the wolf charged after the crone again, hoping that she was somewhere upwind. Donald had an idea and grabbed the Horn of Valhalla off Nakumanu to bring it to the immobile Balinor to blow.

Suddenly Morgan woke up from death, the Jawbone used. Kain went to help him, pulling out his Cure scroll. Donald tied the Horn to Balinor’s neck and ran to help Albee.

Then a Wall of Fire appeared in front of the monk, who skittered to a stop and ran around it. Balinor began blowing the Horn.

Albee found the crone and attacked. The crone swung her staff and missed, but Albee was having similar trouble. The wolf hit again though.

The warriors from Valhalla appeared before Balinor. Unfortunately, Balinor was having severe difficulty getting the Horn out of his mouth.

Morgan was cured and rose along with Kain to go help the monk. Albee was still battling the witch. The wolf hit the witch again, but sensed the possum approaching again.

The possum dropped the wolf, freeing the witch to activate the item and Fireball Albee again.

Albee was finally hit by the fireball, but was still standing, and miraculously the wolf was still alive.

Balinor finally spat the Horn out of his mouth, and commanded the warriors to kill the crone. When they started running toward the Wall of Fire, Balinor yelled, “AROUND the firewall!” They changed direction.

The warriors passed Kain, Donald, and Morgan and reached the witch. Kain yelled a Command “Die!” at her, and, amazingly, she dropped. The warriors immediately swung and did tremendous damage to her with their two-handed swords.

Well, that was abrupt. Morgan dragged the body of the crone back to the main party and Balinor ordered the warriors to go. When they didn’t immediately leave, Balinor knew he was in trouble.

The warriors walked up to Balinor, and trashed him. He fell, and they went back through the portal.

Balinor did live, though he was incapacitated.

Four dead party members, though Morgan was still alive. Everyone except for Kain was completely trashed.

Albee went to a nearby farm to get a cart to put the bodies in. He met the farmer, and said, “Hey, we’re in trouble, I’m a member of the Nevronian Church…” Bad move. Someone tried to hit him with a shovel, but Albee turned around and dropped the farmer.

The man he was talking to pulled a crossbow, and tried to shoot him, but missed. Albee snapped his neck, killing him instantly. The third farmer hit Albee with a pitchfork, nearly dropping the monk. Albee then killed him with his spear.

The monk returned with cart, saying he had killed all SIX farmers. Hmm.

The party started staggering to Restenford. Cassian’s hawk delivered a message to Quentin in Restenford, who flew to help us. We put Felix in the Bag of Holding and gave him to Quentin, who aided us in transporting the dead people to Barnacus for Raising.

As Felix awoke in Barnacus, he saw the concerned Archbishop, and then, in the corner, our death wish morgue monk, shaking his head sadly, and wincing when Quentin reported that “the other two would arrive in a few days.” All three were successfully Raised and took no permanent damage. This was particularly amazing in the case of Chiaro, who had dropped below –30 after the SECOND Fireball.

In Restenford, Kain discovered to his dismay that the crone’s sole had inexplicably departed. This was explained by the Archbishop.

The crone was actually the high priestess of the demon-worshippers, and due to the lack of coherence among chaotic evil religions, the whole thing disintegrated. The Duke of Kroten (Benct), despite being a real loser, does hate the demon-worshippers as opponents to his control over his subjects, and will not oppose our actions. He has probably already gotten men up there and is doing what he needs to do.

Fortunately for the Defenders, the crone didn’t trust her men and kept her treasure on her. We found about 15,000 gp in jewelry and gems, and three magic items.

The crone had scrolls of Cure Light x2, Raise Dead, Sanctuary/Withdraw/Airwalk, and Blade Barrier. She also had a Ring of MARSUPIAL CONTROL, to go with the Ring of Toad Control, a staff+3, and a Belt of Fire Manipulation.

The Belt has about 20 charges, and uses 1 or 2 for its abilities, which include such gems as Fireball, Fire Wall, Burning Hands, etc. A truly nifty item. It is rechargeable, but only for prohibitive amounts of money (low thousands of gp for a charge).

XP ranged from 300 for Felix and Bogomel (1000 for the first time dead people) to about 2500 for Donald and Albee.

Donald trained to 7th level, gaining 4 hp to raise his total to 37. Nakumanu gained 4th level and 5 hp to stand at 30.

Gaining 7th level is extremely cool for Donald. He immediately learned Charm Monster (!) and Polymorph Self, though he completely blew Massmorph. Furthermore, he is expecting several 4th level spells from Wicker.

Then the extent of our disaster struck us. The Fireballs had hit about 90% of our equipment. We were extremely lucky as most of our containers survived, and all that was lost ultimately was 1 +1 arrow, two quality bows, and all of our potions were superheated (unknown whether they survived or not). We’ll talk to the alchemist to check that out.

Balinor’s plate+2 was saved, barely, by the armorer in Barnacus.

Amazingly, we ended up in the black, with about 6000 gp remaining. We also have the high priestess’ holy symbol, which has 3 cw of adamantite in it. We’re unsure of what to do with this.

We still have to pay salvage tax on our items. The scroll of Blade Barrier paid for our Raises. We then have to choose which of the other big scrolls to give up (I suspect we’ll try to keep the Raise Dead scroll). We also have to chose between the staff+3 and the Belt.

September 08, 1999

Defenders Summary #64: A Ninety Degree Turn

This is not a very exciting summary, but it was necessary to resolve things smoothly so that we can continue adventuring.

The Restenford Defenders have changed significantly in composition. Following the mission to Bone Hill and the pickup of the dim-witted fighter Bogomel, several party members decided that it was time for a break. Alduin decided to remain in Restenford and wrestle with the elusive puzzle box. Quentin’s plans are unknown to the party. Kodo will remain in the Baron’s service as a tracker and scout (a very durable one).

First we resolved some magic items questions. Kodo will receive (as requested) the Smokeshield+1, studded leather+2, handaxe+1, and we threw in the ½ potion of climbing. The party retrieves from his person the Bag of Holding 600/2000, the Horn of Valhalla, and the Ring of Health.

Alduin receives the Manual of Stealthy Pilfering, the Ring of Concealment+2, the Potion of Invisibility, and the Ring of Jumping. The party retrieves from him the dagger+3, Potion of Polymorph, and Boots of Elvenkind.

Quentin’s status is uncertain. We would really like one or two of his six or seven items. Particular requests: one of the three defensive items (cloak+2, ring+1, bracers 7/7) or the spear+1 for Bogomel, who is a specialist. We’ll try to contact Jeremy.

Understand that when the party finally breaks up, all the “party” magic items become individual items and likely these people will get some of these items back at that time (such as whatever Quentin gives up, the Horn of Valhalla, the Bags, potions, etc.).

This mass exodus brought about a few other changes. We decided that because of the loss of Kodo, we would need more fighters, at least for Command and Hold Person purposes. So we will be taking Nakumanu and Bogomel along on most adventures (they are the party’s sole henchmen, a pair of 3rd level fighters).

We still have a few problems. Kain can cover some druidic spells fairly well. However, we still have no tracker or thief/scout. Part of this is solved by giving Morgan the Boots of Elvenkind, making him as good as any thief at hiding and moving silently, which is cool.

However, we still needed a lockpick and traps specialist at least. This meant a thief. We thought about possible connections, and Amortician (Morty) the bard’s name was brought up. We were looking him up for a possible excursion to Bone Hill (if we could do anything productive there) for information purposes. Why not invite him along?

The answer to that is still uncertain, so we won’t know about Morty for another week. It was already that Morty would be unlikely to leave Lendore Isle, so this was at best a temporary solution. So we thought about thieves, and realized that NPC thieves are exceedingly unlikely to be trustworthy, especially given our lovely relations with Hindus, the god of thieves.

Suddenly it hit us—a monk! Some minor discussion ensued, and it quickly became clear that a good monk (Nevronian was the party’s choice) would be both trustworthy and good at what we needed, plus possibly survivable as well. So we traveled to Barnacus to interview possible monks (not henchmen).

We interviewed six Nevronian candidates, and one Korian. We simply couldn’t abide by the restrictions of night actions, so the Korian was out. The first Nevronian was older and exceedingly fanatical about Nevron and downright insulting to the other party religions, so we rejected her.

The second one was more tolerant, but still had an edge. As we learned from the curate, she had the most raw talent and ability, and was somewhat experienced.

The third was a jovial bulky guy who had clearly had a lot of experience. He was the most expensive to release from service and he had a somewhat weird attitude—he really liked to fight in close combat rather than with a ranged weapon. We were somewhat concerned considering that we he might be trying to punch could theoretically LEVEL DRAIN him, but hey. He seemed aggressive but we liked him as a candidate.

The fourth was our favorite in attitude—open to new experiences, clearly wanting to see the world. The problem was that she was fresh out of training.

The fifth I don’t remember.

The last was really weird. He had a death wish, and had seen lots of bodies in the morgue for Raising. He had a veteran adventurer’s attitude in the sense that he expected to be killed.

It came down to numbers 2,3, and 4. 3 was the most experienced, 4 was the least, and 2 was the middle ground. We decided on the most experienced because he was clearly the most survivable.

As it turned out, we had badly underestimated the difference in experience, as you can see by the new party roster:

Albee has several magic items to help him out in addition to his near maximum possible hit points. He has a ball of wire that will wrap itself around the person it is thrown at and paralyze them effectively. He then charges and beats them up. Suddenly what he was saying during the interview makes sense.

We were quite happy with the choice. We paid the 1000 gp release fee and agreed to additional donations (they’d already been “encouraged” by the 15 platinum pieces out of Balinor’s pocket—Balinor is the “party spokesman” to the Nevronian Church, in an ironic twist).

Information from Morty indicated that we could do little to change the situation in Bone Hill, as it had been tried repeatedly and required magics we will never achieve. So we shifted our attention to a short quest.

We traveled to Benct for the first time since the Brinea adventure, and went to the Nevronian Church. They had had a mission for us 8 years back about dealing with the demon-worshippers of Trun, the small village to the north of Benct. The details will be given next game, but we have planned massive aerial surveillance of the hill on which the Seapoint Lightning were annihilated, followed by possible questioning of townspeople with ESP and Detect Lie spells (it’s good to have a 7th level cleric).

Onward.

Joel/Balinor

P.S. Those not in the Defenders can ignore this part, as it is simply a list of magic items for confirmation purposes with Edwin and the players who are leaving.

By my count, we have not dealt with the Belt of Many Pouches. Also, I may be missing an item on Morgan. Everyone check to see that what I wrote makes sense. Thanks!